Upgrade
by Dark Ice Dragon
Summary: Second Life gets a small upgrade. It doesn't go exactly to plan.
1. Chapter 1

Set fairly earlyish in the manhua.

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**Upgrade**

By Dark Ice Dragon

* * *

Lan sighed, staring out the window as she leaned her chin on her crossed arms. Outside, rain lashed at the city, falling so furiously it gave everything a grey tint. Accompanying it was gale force winds that were threatening to uproot trees.

...

That _was_ able to uproot trees, Lan corrected, watching a tree fly past with wide eyes. Thankfully the buildings weren't being damaged by the flying debris and they didn't seem to be getting affected by the rain or wind either.

She turned in her chair to stare at the row of faces packed in the room. All of Odd Squad was there, along with numerous other people caught by the storm. All the seats were filled, and people had started taking to sitting on tables a while ago.

They'd all been told about a small upgrade that the designers were uploading when they'd first logged on, but when they actually got into Second Life, they didn't see any difference from before. They didn't think about it again until they decided to have a break from training.

The weather had been fine when they'd first came into city. It was only after they'd finished their usual sized meal that they realised just how crowded the restaurant was compared to how it was when they're first entered and just how wet some of the other players were.

Was it like this in all of Second Life, or was it just here? If it was the whole of Second Life, the respawn point was probably really busy too. And then if too many people died, it could force people waiting by the point outside and then they'd be caught by the weather again...

Wolf sat down next to her. "I don't think we'll be able to leave here tonight," he murmured, watching the scene through the window. It _did_ look like it wasn't going to stop any time soon, but from what they'd heard from the other players, there hadn't been any warning before the weather had changed either, except some said that the sun had turned red a few seconds before it started pouring. Others said it was the clouds that had changed colour.

Either way, they were stuck inside with nothing to do.

Lan stretched and grabbed the closest plate. Almost nothing to do. She caught the shadow smile Yulian was sending everyone at the table and cautiously put the plate back. Hopefully she hadn't seen her.

But _now_ what was she going to do?

... This was going to be a long night.

Yang Ming was lounging in his chair, his eyes half closed when Lan brought his breakfast through the next morning.

"You look happy," she commented as she set the plate down.

He grinned. "Last night it was clear blue skies, the sun was so hot, and there was a small breeze." He sighed happily. "It was perfect."

Lan scowled. How did her brother have the luck of having such nice weather when she got stuck with the pouring rain?

"So all we did," he continued, "was choose a good spot and then stayed there the whole time." He placed his hands behind his head, obviously still remembering everything." I think I even got a tan!" Yang Ming looked at her. "What did you do last night?"

She turned her head away, not looking at him. "None of your business," she said primly.

Hopefully the weather would be fixed tonight and they could get back to playing.

That night, the city was enveloped in a blizzard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary**: Second Life gets another upgrade; Lan's a little bit happier with this one.

Swearing.

Set later in the manhua.

I have come to the conclusion that Lucathia Rykatu has a magical power where she can make plotbunnies grow out of _nothing._ XDD

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**************Upgrade**

By Dark Ice Dragon

* * *

Lan waited for Second Life to load, feeling exhausted, but satisfied. They'd swept the house _thoroughly_ clean days before (she'd forgotten about all the places that dust could collect) and had a _massive_feast before the New Year; she doubted she'd be able to eat anything for another couple of hours.

When Infinite City appeared in front of her, Lan stared. There had been another announcement before she'd logged on, wishing her a happy New Year and also informing her that a few changes had been done to Second Life. They hadn't said what.

Every single player Lan could see had had their gear dyed red – including herself, she realised when she glanced down.

She saw the rest of Odd Squad coming up towards her, their gear red as well. Just as Lan was opening her mouth, a thunderous roar echoed around them, loud enough to shake the ground. W-what? What was _that?_

Lan gaped when she saw something slither over _and above_ the buildings. It was bigger than the _castle! _From her vantage point, Lan could see an almost dragon-like body and a mouth full of teeth.

"Is that the _Nian?_" Gui yelped in disbelief.

The Nian? She was old enough that it wouldn't eat her, right? Staring up at the mob, Lan could feel the adrenaline in her body racing through her, making her heart pound.

When the Nian roared again, Lan laughed. Fighting that would be so much _fun!_ This was an _awesome _upgrade!

Nothing happened when Lan summoned her dao.

Lan stared at her hand blankly before the realisation hit her: you weren't supposed to use blades on New Year's.

_Shiiiiit_.

But then, how was she supposed to _attack? _Kick it to death?

Yulian was frowning, looking down at her staff. "I can't use my fire magic either."

So that left… Lan turned to Gui and Wolf, who glanced at each other, their eyes wide.

Wolf cleared his throat. "We _are _wearing red," he pointed out.

Which was supposed to scare the Nian away. "So, we run up to it." With pretty much no weapons or magic to back them up.

"While making lots of noise," Gui added, his voice nervous.

Lan ran a hand down her face. They really couldn't do much else anyway… Hopefully bashing her wrists together would be enough to do something other than making Nian laugh.

xOx

Several hours later, Lan flopped onto the grass, feeling like her limbs were never going to move again. Even without a weapon, Lan's attack power was still stronger than Gui's or Wolf's, and attacking it with a staff barely did any damage. The Nian really had died of a thousand hits.

{Nian dropped [Nian's reins]!}

That was nice. Lan didn't really care.

{Prince picked up [Nian's reins]!}

What? She hadn't – ooh, it was a boss drop.

A cheer went up around her.

"Our Lord is the best!"

"He got the drop!"

"They say it only drops _once!_"

"I want to see the mount!"

Right. As the fight had went on, more people had joined the fight. Lan hoped they didn't mind her lying down like she was, but she guessed they didn't, considering they weren't saying anything about it and were lying in similar positions anyway.

With a sigh, Lan heaved herself to her feet, opening her inventory. The reins were there and when she touched them, the Nian wavered into existence next to her.

There was a collective 'oooooh'.

"…You're smaller than I thought you'd be," Lan said.

Nian narrowed a glare at her. Up close, Lan could see every single hair that ran around their head, as well as the stubby horns that clustered around the top of Nian's snout. There were also the absurdly long claws at the end of their paws that were longer than her entire hand.

But how was she supposed to get on Nian? They were twice her height!

"I'm not bowing to you," Nian growled, his hair bristling.

Bow? Lan tilted her head at Nian. Oh - _that _was how she was supposed to get on him.

-'_Prince,_'- Lolidragon PM'd her, her voice dry, -'_don't get on him yet – we don't want the City Lord's followers to see their 'perfect' City Lord gallop off in the wrong direction._'-

Haha… Right. (Was Nian going to listen to her anyway? It didn't seem like it.)

* * *

*Dies. Laughing*

The Nian is supposed to eat young children, which is why Lan's thinking about her age when she sees Nian. Using blades and lighting fires on New Year's Day are considered to be bad luck.

Aaaaaah, I wanna write more of Nian!

*sigh* ffdotnet strips the triangular brackets now. =/


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